MOVIE REVIEW: 'Watermark' misses the mark

Friday

Apr 11, 2014 at 7:00 AMApr 28, 2014 at 7:23 AM

For a movie proselytizing the dire need to preserve our rivers and oceans, “Watermark” is shockingly dry.

By Al AlexanderFor the Patriot Ledger

For a movie proselytizing the dire need to preserve our rivers and oceans, “Watermark” is shockingly dry. You can consciously feel your attention evaporating, as directors Jennifer Baichwal and Edward Burtynsky fill the screen with stylish images but little substance. Like a mountain stream, their film meanders across the globe, making stops at the world’s largest dam, the Xiluodu in China, a leather tannery in Bangladesh, the Fountains of Bellagio in Las Vegas, the diminishing glaciers in Greenland and many a dried-up river bed in Mexico and California. All capped off with a dip in the Ganges with 30 million Hindus looking to literally wash away their sins.

In every case it’s obvious that humans abuse water more than any other natural resource. But lost amid all the pretty pictures is film’s message that water is the most essential element of our lives. Without it, we’d all be dead in a matter of days. Yet there’s little sense of urgency in the wake of “Watermark’s” narrative drought. Instead of being intriguing, it should be scaring the bajeezus out of us. But why let facts like climate change and water pollution get in the way of all those gorgeous sunsets and Escher-like photographs of the now bone-dry ancient stepwells in Rajasthan? The problem is that Burtynsky, a renowned landscape photographer, is into assembling picture books more than championing environmentalism. Too often we see him pouring over proofs for his next publication instead of beating a loud drum for the planet’s impending doom, an aquatic armageddon that some predict is a mere 200 years away. His directing partner, Baichwal, dutifully plays along, which is understandable given the hagiographical treatment she afforded Burtynsky in her 2006 documentary “Manufactured Landscapes.” She seems more interested in him than the largely unchecked destruction of the world’s waterways.

Luckily, the evocative images provided by cinematographer Nicholas de Pencier cut straight to the heart of the matter, which is overpopulation and industrial greed are slowly killing us, not to mention the fish, oysters and clams. But those moments are too often overruled by aesthetics, which is great for a photo book or exhibit, but woefully empty in a documentary intended to fire up the potentially thirsty masses.